shashasha

“Reflections on Tsugaru” by Japanese photographer Sho Shibata. Shibata was born here, in the northernmost region of Japan’s main island of Honshu. The region is covered under snow for most of the year. Shibata photographs to capture the beauty of the Tsugaru region, and to share it with the world. His photography defies common standards of landscape photography – Shibata goes beyond superficial aesthetic ideas of nature photography. The mastery of the idiosyncratic possibilities offered by black-and-white photography on display here is astonishing. Shibata transforms the landscapes before him into something new without robbing them of their landscape-ness.

A short book with essays by Shibata (in Japanese only) and several additional photographs is available as a separate publication.